Subject: Re: Makahs and Whales
Date: Aug 15 22:38:40 1997
From: "William H. Lawrence" - whl at Localaccess.com


At 09:25 PM 8/15/97 -0000, you wrote:

Right on the mark with your comments Jon!

In the '60's (years ago)I was an expert witness for the Umatilla Tribe
in an elk hunting trial that the State of Oregon raised against the
confederated tribes. In contrast, just prior I was an expert wwitness for
the Oregon Game Commission in a bout with the state legislature supporting
the commission's position re antlerless deer hunting. Using commission data
the elk were being under harvested for the carrying capcity of the range at
that time. The commission was forced into the case I guess. It was a federal
trial and the judge found for the tribe.The state then appealed and the US
Supreme Court ruled against the state's appeal. Our great white hunters have
a hard time with Native American game and fishing rights and the taking of
female wildlife. But who squawks grouse, ducks, pheasents, antelope etc

Last year I visted a village a the mouth of the Mackensie River in the
Northwest Territories and Native Canadians were harvesting Belugas using
harpoons and quick despatch with rifles. We could not watch at hand but
could see from a distance. Bill

>Hi folks,
>
>Interesting thread, this. The Makah signed one of the Steven's treaty,
which generally
>reserved the Tribes' rights to take fish at all usual and accustomed
places, in common with the
>citizens, etc. etc. This has been regularly interpreted by the federal
courts (since 1890, the
>year after Washington became a State...) as inviolable - most recently in
the US vs Washington
>"Boldt Decision" cases, which not only re-affirmed the rights of the tribes
to fish and gather
>shellfish, but also adjudicated allocations of harvestable numbers of
salmon and shellfish.
>Because this right was reserved by the Tribes when the treaties were
signed, they maintain
>them. It's kind of like your selling me a lot off your property, but
"reserving" a right-of-way
>across that lot, so you can still get to your house.
>
>I do not understand that the right to take whales was adjudicated within
the context of the Boldt
>decision (50% of harvestable numbers). The rights of the tribes to hunt is
generally recognized, however,and former Game Dept director Smitch fanned
the fires of the Indian-haters when he
>entered into agreements with the Tribes over hunting rights -- and avoiding
the millions of
>taxpayers' dollars wasted in useless litigation, as was done with the
salmon, steelhead and
>shellfish (Let's all thank Slimy Slade for that debacle!).
>
>To think that their rights to take fish or whales is only a right to take
fish and whales the way they
>did when the Treaties were signed is erroneous. Their rights cannot be
legally subjected to such
>an interpretation. A right is a right, and is not subject to being
diminished by, certainly such
>rules and regulations that the State might impose on its other citizens.
It does not matter whether
>they choose to hunt the whale with a cedar or a modern harpoon.
>
>The Makah people have a thousands-of-years-old tradition of taking
sustenance from the sea.
>Salmon, shellfish, birds' eggs, seals and whales. I think it's pretty
presumptuous of us, as
>middle-class whites (for the most part), to impose our cultural biases on a
people. This is no
>better than forcing Christianity, the work ethic, whiskey and diseases on a
people.
>
>Anyway, I guess that I'll support the efforts of the Makah Tribe in its
ceremonial whaling. When
>a whale beached over in Whatcom County a few years ago, the Lummi Nation
had to get the
>Makah to come to sing the songs, because the Lummi had lost the whale songs
in the last 140
>years. The Makah have the spirit, they have the songs, and they have the
right. More power to
>them.
>
>Being's this is a "bird" discussion group, I wonder if the thread should
turn to the rights of the Tribes to gather Murre or Coot eggs?.......
>
>Jon. Anderson
>Olympia, Washington
>festuca at olywa.net
>